The advent of recombinant technology, allowing the production of recombinant proteins in desirable host cells, has opened the door to various uses for recombinantly produced proteins. Production of recombinant proteins suitable for use as therapeutics, diagnostic and/or research reagents is widely known within the biotechnology field. Notably, over the past decade, therapeutic proteins have become increasingly prominent. Typically, the process for producing a recombinant protein ranges from identifying a clone which produces a desirable product, to scaling up manufacturing and product purification and usually is arduous and lengthy, demanding a significant commitment of time, labor and resources. With recombinant proteins becoming entrenched in the therapeutics market, more efficient ways of producing and purifying recombinant products is desirable. However, merely increasing production of a recombinant protein is not sufficient. For example, most recombinantly produced proteins are present in complex mixtures of products, which makes the task of purifying the desired recombinant protein challenging as well as time consuming. Furthermore, due to the strict Federal Food and Drug Administration requirements on protein consistency, quality, and purity, better methods of protein production and purification are desired.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved technologies which result in higher quantities as well as improved quality of the protein produced.